Trying to find a particular plumber using Yellow Pages (and White Pages) this morning reminds me of just how profitable it can be to sell assets at the right time. Yellow Pages will sink to oblivion because it provides terrible service, and because it has been left in the dustbin by Google..

Yellow Page search functions are primitive. Requiring precision for a hit is infuriating nonsense. They may still be hamstrung by a Privacy Commissioner code that effectively bans intuitive searching. But if so, that is their fault.

I pushed back on that code while a member of the Regulations Review Committee in Parliament, in the interests of consumers. But Telecom was too gutless to cooperate with the members on that committee I gee'd up to resist the Privacy Commissioner. I've seen no sign since that Yellow Pages has used public law resource to get out of the regulatory strait-jacket.

The biggest easily avoidable loss to New Zealanders this year could be the failure to sell down Solid Energy last year. Selling at the peak of a mineral boom is nearly always profitable. Mining boom cycles run for decades. We could have had foreigners sharing half the losses we've now crystallised in Solid Energy.